DID YOU BELIEVE IN JAVITS? The Senate committee charged with appropriating funds for its continuation didn't, according to their vote on July 29th -- but the battle may move now to the US House of Representatives. Find more information at the CEC website.
THE EFFECT OF GOOD TEACHERS, QUANTIFIED. Try $320,000 -- that's the estimated value of a stand-out kindergarten teacher, as measured by the increased earnings of a full class or his or her students. The New York Times reported on a longitudinal study of 12,000 children, in which some teachers were identified as being able to help their students learn much more than other teachers. The results? "Students who had learned much more in kindergarten were more likely to go to college than students with otherwise similar backgrounds. Students who learned more were also less likely to become single parents. As adults, they were more likely to be saving for retirement. Perhaps most striking, they were earning more." Read the article and give a raise to a standout teacher you know.
ON BULLYING. Also from The New York Times: An op-ed piece "There's Only One Way to Stop a Bully" (training teachers and staff how to recognize bullying and intervene), along with quite a few thoughtful responses to the article by readers. If bullying is an issue that you're concerned with, find the article and find the responses.
AD/HD AND DIET. An Australian study suggests that adolescents eating a "Western" diet have twice the risk of AD/HD than those eating a "Healthy" diet, one high in fresh fruit and vegetables, whole grains, and fish. The Western diet? It's heavy in takeaway foods, confectionery, processed, fried and refined foods, and higher in total fat, saturated fat, refined sugar, and sodium. The researchers speculate the difference in the levels of omega-3 fatty acids might be the culprit. Read more, then go harass your teenager.
INTELLIGENCE AND THE BRAIN is a new book by Dennis Garlick, Ph.D., who answers questions about it in an interview with Michael Shaughnessy. Topics covered include the nature of intelligence, IQ, and IQ testing. Find it.
TEACHING MICROBIOLOGY WITH A VIDEO GAME. It can be done successfully, according to a press release from Wake Forest University. CellCraft, a game developed there and available on popular gaming sites, was played more than a million times within 10 days of its release. Gamers made comments such as, "I wish this game would've come out earlier; maybe I wouldn't have received a D in Biology." The game is available for free download at www.cellcraftgame.com. For the school year, it will include a free, downloadable teacher's packet and a printable lab worksheet. Read more.
STUCK AT PROM CONTEST WINNERS ANNOUNCED. One of our favorite contests, where high-school prom-goers make their outfits out of Duck brand duct tape, has announced this year's winners. You can see the winners here. (You've got to admit, winning this contest takes creativity, discipline, and artistic talent. It's not every kid that would spend up to 300 hours to craft, say, a Victorian-inspired gown -- even if the kids did get to spend the time in the company of their prom dates.)
BACK TO SCHOOL? It's not even August. But anyway, the American Optometric Association has issued its back-to-school recommendation for eye exams. The press release includes indicators of vision problems, for example performing below potential or struggling to complete homework. Find the release. Along those lines, the College of Optometrists in Vision Development (COVD), members of which have been featured in 2e Newsletter, note that August is National Children's Vision and Learning Month. Find the COVD website.
DSM-V -- CONTINUING SAGA. An editorial in the Journal of Mental Health expresses concerns among experts that proposed guidelines in the new DSM would qualify almost everyone as having some sort of disorder. You can actually read the full editorial online, or you can read others' interpretations here or here.
DO YOU BELIEVE IN JAVITS?
Some members of Congress do not. NAGC says that last week a U.S. House subcommittee eliminated funding for the only federal program specifically supporting gifted and talented students. This program is a perennial political football, deflated for 2010 to a funding level of $7.5, down from its "traditional" level of over $11 million. The Senate subcommittee responsible for funding the Javits Program meets on July 27th (postponed from the 22nd) to consider funding for the program, among others.
NAGC makes it really easy to advocate for Javits funding. First, go here to find out more. Then, if you live in the one of the 14 states represented by a Senator on the appropriations subcommittee, you can use a government link to go directly to that senator's website and contact him or her. Those states are: Alabama, Arkansas, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, and Wisconsin.
In comparison to the $11.25 million that NAGC would like to see in funding for the Javits Program, consider these budget requests:
- The administration is requesting $12.8 billion in 2011 funds for special education.
- $1.8 billion is requested to manage the US Department of Education.
- Total funding for elementary and secondary education is $25 billion, as near as we can tell from the government's obfuscated presentation on budget numbers.
ADVOCATE -- as in verb. The Council for Exceptional Children joins the ranks of organizations urging their members to support renewal of the Javits Program for research into gifted issues. The deadline: Tuesday, April 13th. Find out more.
CALLING GIFTED TEENS. Judy Galbraith of Free Spirit Publishing invites teens who are gifted to take an anonymous survey concerning giftedness, education, relationships, and personal growth. Her goal: to help update the Free Spirit book The Gifted Kids' Survival Guide. Find the survey.
COLORADO GIFTED EVENT. Barbara Gilman, of Denver's Gifted Development Center, has scheduled an April 26th presentation titled "Optimizing Gifted Advocacy by Parents and Schools: How to Ensure Meaningful Options, Even in Difficult Times." Find out more about where and what.
EDNEWS.ORG AND DAVID RABINER. If you enjoy the AD/HD-themed newsletters we point you to by David Rabiner of Duke University, you might be interested in Michael Shaughnessy's recent interview with Rabiner at Ednews.org. Find the interview.
GIFTED EDUCATION MYTHS is the topic of Tamara Fisher's most recent posting at "Unwrapping the Gifted." She comments on the persistence of some myths treated in a recent article in Gifted Child Quarterly, noting that the some of the myths were "the very same ones tackled in the 1982 issue" of the same publication. She also points to several articles of her own dealing with gifted education myths. Find the post. Separately, we invite our readers to check out our six-part series "The Mythology of Learning" at the 2e Newsletter website.
ART COMPETITION. The Brian Ayers Memorial Art Exhibition celebrates the "unusual artistic ability of children with learning disabilities and dyslexia." The competition is open to artists ages 7 through 21, with an entry deadline of July 1st. You can find out more about the Exhibition here (including its poignant history), and see some of the striking past entries here.
SAY IT AIN'T SO! Seems like as long as we've been doing 2e Newsletter we've reported on the yearly battles to maintain Javits GT education funding in the U.S. budget. We assumed things would improve with the new administration, but NAGC reports that President Obama's 2010 budget eliminates the token amount ($11 million) that is the benchmark for the program's funding. If you're not tired of advocating for this funding, go to NAGC's site to see what you can do.
SPREADING THE WORD, ONE MEDIA OUTLET AT A TIME. The site of News Channel 5 in Tennessee has a piece introducing the concept of "twice exceptional" to its audience. We can't claim any of the credit for it, but it's great to see spreading awareness of the challenges faced by our gifted, LD kids. Find the article.
VALEDICTORY TIME. Find out what's on the mind of seven gifted high school students in New York City as they prepare to get on with their lives, courtesy of The New York Times. Of note: four of the seven are from immigrant families. One student's response to a question about how it feels to graduate and embark on the rest of your life, answerable in one word, said: "Finally?" Read it.
2e IN CANADA. At the Canadian Parents website is a forum called "Gifted and Learning Disabilities?" Not sure why the question mark is there, maybe forum members are still not convinced it's possible (any answers on that from Canada? :-) ), but we know our Canadian friends are eager for 2e news and resources in their fair country. Find the forum, which is a subset of a "Bright and Gifted Children" area.
PLACEBO IN KIDS CHANGES CAREGIVER BEHAVIOR. Science Daily reports a study showing that parents and educators who assume a child is receiving stimulant medication for AD/HD tend to view those children more favorably and treat them more positively -- regardless of whether the children were actually medicated. So instead of "seeing is believing," we have "assuming is believing." Find the article.
MORE NEWS as the week goes on...